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Inspired by mentors as a child, Atlantic Beach woman now heads agency

Ex-punter's wife tries to give kids a leg up.

Leah Barker is the director of Duval County's Take Stock in Children program. Take Stock has begun offering fundraising shares. Barker's goal is to make Take Stock a household name as an investment for children, not a charity.

Leah Barker (right) is director of the local Take Stock in Children program. Here, Barker meets with Cindy Kichura, a sophomore at Fletcher High.

Leah Barker was 13 at the time, and her mom had just taken her for a walk in her wheelchair outside the hospital in her hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Barker wanted to know why it was so dark.

A case of red measles had ended with Barker getting encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain. The doctors said the outlook wasn't good, said her mom, Al Lynch.

"They told us she wasn't going to make it, and if she did, she was going to have severe brain damage," her mom said.

Barker's eyesight was gone, and doctors weren't optimistic about when, or if, it would come back. But Barker wasn't as concerned.

"I just never remember thinking that it would be permanent," she said.

It was on her path to recovery that she met the people who would have a profound impact on her life. And it was that experience that would make Barker's new role as director of Duval County's Take Stock in Children program seem like a perfect fit.

Now 42, Barker regained her eyesight, but during her recovery couldn't return to her favorite sport, volleyball. So she took up running, beginning by tying herself to another runner's wrist. She eventually became an accomplished, lifelong runner.

She also excelled in school. She worked with a math tutor and finished her math course in weeks instead of months. So she was assigned to help teachers in a special education class during parts of the school day.

It was here she met her own mentors, the two women who helped change her life.

"They made me feel included," Barker said, "that this work was important and that I was making a difference in their students' lives."

After working with the teachers, she knew she wanted to help children. She earned a scholarship to Washington State University, where she studied special education. She taught for a few years part time, but eventually settled in Atlantic Beach with her husband, former Jaguars punter Bryan Barker, and their three children.

Let Us Play!

One night in the mid-1990s, Leah Barker said she was driving to the airport to pick up her visiting mother. On the way, she heard an advertisement for a sports camp for boys. There was no reason girls shouldn't have a sports camp, she thought to herself.

At the time, Nike had a marketing campaign about the importance of girls getting involved in sports.

"If we're ever going to get girls to the next level, we have to have the same opportunities," Barker remembered saying to herself.

By the time Barker's mom got in the car, she had to hear her daughter talk about the need for a girls sports camp. When she got home, Barker woke up her husband to tell him of her idea.

So the Barkers created the Let Us Play! Sports Camp in 1996. The name was sort of a rallying cry, the Barkers said.

"It wasn't asking permission anymore," Leah Barker said.

While Bryan Barker sought support from Nike, Leah sought help from the United Way. She organized every aspect of the weeklong camp for 12- to 15-year-old girls. Then in 1999, the Let Us Play! Junior 2K was added for boys and girls ages 5 to 12. Both events are held annually, though the camp will be on hiatus this year. But the Let Us Play! Foundation is hoping to find enough sponsors to continue hosting the run this spring.

It was during sports camps that Jon Heymann, executive director of Communities in Schools of Jacksonville, met Barker. By 2008, Barker became Communities in Schools' development director, where she collaborated with the symphony so that young children can learn an instrument.

"It is one of the things I am probably most proud of," Barker said. "Once we put the instruments in kids' hands, it was just magic."

It was pulling off projects like those that so impressed Heymann.

Barker is "superbly professional, highly energetic and a phenomenally creative" person, Heymann said. Communities in Schools is the umbrella organization of Take Stock, and he thought Barker would be a good fit for Take Stock.

In April, Barker was named Take Stock's local director. The statewide organization helps at-risk students succeed in school and then gives them a college scholarship.

Barker has been a mentor herself for three years.

Continuing help for students

Most Friday mornings, she walks into the guidance counseling area of Fletcher High School with a Taco Bell bag. The crunch wrap supreme is 16-year-old Cindy Kichura's favorite meal.

The two sit together for Cindy's lunch break, talking about friends, classes, college plans and whatever else comes to mind.

Just like Barker, Cindy has devoted parents. But Barker hopes to give Cindy whatever extra guidance will help the honors student as she plans for the University of North Florida in three years.

Barker knows it's that transition into college that's toughest for children in the Take Stock program.

So the Duval organization teamed with Florida State College at Jacksonville to pilot a program where an advocate works with students to help them once they're in college. And she is encouraging mentors to continue working with their students throughout college as well.

So far, the organization has 460 mentors, but Take Stock is always looking for more, and Barker isn't shy about asking friends to get involved.

Her close friend, Kerrie Slattery, described Barker as unassuming but resourceful and filled with energy. Slattery now serves on the Take Stock leadership council.

"She has a real skill to get others to become passionate about the same cause," Slattery said.

In an effort to help more children, Take Stock has just begun offering 200,000 fundraising shares, at $25 a share, as part of its Initial Public Offering.

Barker's goal is to make Take Stock a household name as an investment in children, not a charity.

The stakes are high in a county with about 67 percent of students graduating from high school, she said.

"This is what we have to do," she said, "to change the graduation rate."